Mountain Goats
The Sunset Tree

By Vish Khanna

In what some are calling his most intensely personal work, John Darnielle translates his step-father’s passing into a fiercely impassioned collection of new songs. It takes one listen to “Dance Music” to realise that The Sunset Tree is some kind of coping record. With its blend of jaunty guitar, piano and Darnielle’s deceptively dark lyrics, the short song traces a child’s loss of innocence for whom music is a security blanket, clutched for dear life. Darnielle’s narratives are desperate, clinging bouts of mixed emotion that are almost always rendered evenly initially before teetering on the brink of exhaustion and collapse. His pointed cadence makes the trite chorus in “This Year” seem like a ballsy dare, while he projects so loudly over the stabbing strings of “Dilaudid,” it’s enough to cause your speakers to weep. A sense of loss pervades the record, and songs like “Up the Wolves” and “Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod” go further to suggest that Darnielle’s step-father is a spectre here. It’s a bittersweet ode, however, providing the songwriter with a complex amalgam of harrowing imagery and bright music. (4AD)

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Castle Project - Diaries of a Broken Heart
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Clit 45 - Self-Hate Crimes
Cloud Cult - Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus
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Fair Sex - The Dark Ages
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Hot Springs - Rock Partouze
Joe Lapinski - Here Are the Postcards I Forgot to Send You
Kill the Thrill - Tellurique
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Last of the Juanitas - In the Dirt
Lewis & Clarke - Bare Bones and Branches
Lorna - Static Patterns and Souvenirs
Lycia - Estrella
Mae - The Everglow
Mindless Self-Indulgence - You’ll Rebel to Anything
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Nads - A Smile for Capitalism
Narrator - Such Triumph
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Nine Inch Nails - With Teeth
Nouvelle Vague - Nouvelle Vague
Novillero - Aim Right for the Holes in Their Lives
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Ocean Colour Scene - A Hyperactive Workout for the Flying Squad
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Ponys - Celebration Castle
Punks - Thank You for the Alternative Rock
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Ratchets - Heart of Town
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